Showcase Offers Medium for Innovators to Expose new Technologies to Market

SAN JOSE, Calif. – January 9, 2006 – SEMI has announced the “call for innovations” for the fourth annual Technology Innovation Showcase (TIS) to be held in conjunction with SEMICON West 2006. The application deadline is March 1, 2006.

The TIS has proven to be a very effective platform for highlighting innovative companies, inventors and entrepreneurs, by exposing their innovations to a broad audience of semiconductor manufacturers, suppliers and investors. For 2006, this three-day event will be held Tuesday, July 11, through Thursday, July 13, at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.

“Bringing new technologies to the marketplace, no matter how innovative, can prove a costly challenge for many new companies,” said Vicki Hadfield, president of SEMI North America. “The Technology Innovation Showcase was designed to address these issues by offering new companies a lower cost of entry into the marketplace, while providing them a high level of relevant exposure among semiconductor manufacturers.”

SEMI welcomes participation from everyone with a solution to a real industry problem, including individual inventors, start-ups, academia, research institutions and large companies. SEMICON West 2006 and the Technology Innovation Showcase will focus on four major technical themes: emerging technologies (energy systems, MEMS, nanotechnology); materials and scaling challenges for 45 and 32 nm process nodes; e-manufacturing (AEC/APC, DFM, automation); and advanced test, assembly and packaging.

Innovations and applications submitted for consideration in the competition will be reviewed by judges using a strict set of criteria, including technical merit, as well as relevance and significance to the semiconductor and related industries. In addition to the competition, the TIS includes technical presentations and displays from all participating companies.

For testimonials from previous winners like SemEquip and Cybosoft, application forms and a complete list of rules and requirements, please visit www.semi.org/tis, or contact Ralph Kirk, SEMI North America at 1.408.943.6992; rkirk@semi.org.

The SEMICON West exposition has been held annually since 1972 and attracted about 44,000 industry registrants in 2005. The exposition continues to be the global communication platform for the worldwide semiconductor equipment and materials industry.